I love bologna. I also love fried chicken. However, I’ve had a whole lot more bologna in
my lifetime than fried chicken.
We think of fried chicken as fit for a
king mostly.
We think of bologna as … well, it’s down
the food chain a few notches.
Ever gone to a potluck supper with your
bologna and all you see is fried chicken?
Let me tell you a story.
Bob Benson, a fabulous writer and
speaker, now deceased, tells this story in his book Come Share the Being – Impact Books ©1974. I have abridged it in some small ways.
The story:
The notice was put out – “Come to the Potluck
of all Potlucks, this Saturday at The Park, Pavilion #4. Bring enough food for your family – we’ll
supply the ice tea.”
So you rush home late on Saturday with
just enough time to throw something simple together and all you can find is an
aging piece of bologna and two moldy slices of bread.
You quickly retrieve the mustard from the
refrig and smear more on your knuckles than on the bread, for the jar is all
but used up. You then throw your
freshly-made stale sandwich into a brown bag and head for The Park, Pavilion
#4.
Just as you arrive the announcement is
made to find your table and dig in. You
sit at the end of a long picnic table with no one around and just as you pull
your bologna sandwich out of the bag a family of four sits down next to you and
they begin to pull out their meal. Meal
is an understatement – it is a feast!
Out comes the fried chicken, followed by
the potato salad, sweet pickles, fresh-made biscuits, baked beans, and with a
flourish the lady of the feast whips out two mouth-watering chocolate
pies.
Your table-sharing family looks over at
your meager sandwich and with great sincerity say, “Why don’t you share our
food with us. We love bologna too.”
You hem and haw and stammer and stutter
about “Naw, that’s okay. I’ll just eat
what I brought.”
They insist - you relent, and you move
into the feast of a lifetime. The fried
chicken is moist and still warm, the potato salad is perfectly made, the baked
beans have just the right amount of brown sugar and molasses, and the chocolate
pies are to die for.
And your price of admission to this feast
… one lousy, moldy, old and stale bologna sandwich.
You sit there eating like a king when you
came like a pauper.
How many times have you and I come to God
with our bologna offerings, and time and again He brings us to the table of
blessings, loaded down and overflowing with an abundance of food (called grace)
and He says “eat up” (which translates to ‘You are loved and forgiven.)
God invites us to share in all that He
offers, and that means abundance, grace, peace, love.
We live a bologna kind of life. He offers us a feast fit for Kings.
We bring our stale, moldy thoughts and actions;
He offers us a clean slate.
We bring our lovelessness, our anger, and
our attitudes of un-grace. He offers us
love, grace and a chance to receive.
There is just not enough goodness in you and
me to make us worthy of approaching God’s table of grace, yet we’re invited
anyway. We are invited, not because He
needs our bologna. We are invited
because we need His fried chicken.
The invitation in the Bible to “come” is
found more than 300 times. He invites
the beat up, the bedraggled, the burnt out, the low down, the penniless, the
smart, the savvy, the rich and the poor.
We all receive the invitation to come and share in the very being of
God.
Maybe all we have to offer is more
bologna of thoughts and words than meat between two pieces of bread.
God says “Come”.
Maybe our cheese has fallen off the
cracker a time or two.
God says “Come”.
Maybe our bank account is flatter than a
pancake.
God says “Come”.
Maybe our fried chicken burned in the
skillet.
God says “Come”.
Will we COME?
Receive the grace offered from the hand
of God himself
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